Count Tim Berners-Lee among new TLD detractors.
Tim Berners-Lee, known as the inventor of the world wide web, isn’t a fan of new top level domains, he told Wired in a press conference at the W3C conference.
“My personal perspective is that what we need in the domain system is stability,” he said. “We don’t need new arbitrary new TLDs.”
Berners-Lee also argued that there’s plenty of space — e.g. available domains — under current top level domains. I’m going to agree with him on that.
For Berners-Lee, the “only role” for a new domain name is “if you are making something that is socially different, such as dot org.” He said that dot org was interesting because it captures the fact that you know that any website with that suffix is a non-profit.
The second sentence is factually incorrect, but I assume the reporter may have exaggerated Berners-Lee’s comment. Although .org is meant for non-profit causes and organizations, it is not a prerequisite to registration.
And of course new TLD proponents could extend this comment as proof of the value of new TLDs. .NYC would only be for companies and people in New York City, much like .org was designed for non-profits.
Head Count says
Why was it I thought Tim Berners-Lee had passed away some time ago?
I would swear it was all over the tech news. I must be thinking of some other early founder of the Web.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Head Count – I think you’re thinking of Jon Postel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel
Head Count says
He’s kind of right on the .org though. If you try to sell Shoes on Shoes.org you look kind of silly and not trustworthy IMO.
Everyone at ICANN should of been fired years ago.
They have proven themselves some of the most destructive and dumbest people on the Net. They are worse than spammers and phishing, really.
Ron says
I second that new tlds are a legal nightmare in the waiting
Steve says
New TLD’s are about making money for ICANN and the registrars. Stability be damned.
gary dell says
The new TLDs will be very profitable for attorneys and a few operators. Under the current costs and pricing structure, most new TLDs will be unsuccessful as will those investing in them.
Seb says
definitely overkill.
Shaggy says
The new tlds will be just as successful as the ever popular .mobi, .biz, .travel, .museum, .aero, .jobs, .pro, .cat, .xxx and .coop.
What’s that you say? Those were all failures, you say?
You are absolutely correct. And the new tlds will all clearly suffer the same fate. I see no difference. Don’t let your .com lapse.
John Berryhill says
Yeah…
Tim Berners-Lee also opposed using the web to transmit pictures:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-03-09-internet_x.htm
At a conference, Berners-Lee yelled at Andreessen, telling him that adding images to the Web was going to bring in a flood of new users who would do things like post photos of nude women.
Andrew Allemann says
@ John Berryhill – uh, point taken 🙂
john says
New gTLDs have many geographic extensions.
Such as .london, .nyc, . berlin
These are whole countries in their own right. Country extension have been successful, so why not city ones?
These will probably be very successful as businesses look to market locally.